Balancing Out Monochromatism
by madamerosencrantz
Summary: "Matt saw in a monochrome palette of amber, and he didn't mind. After all, this restricted vision blessed him with simplicity. Amber condensed color and simplified distractors into varying shades of light and dark. Sometimes, he thought that the simplicity his goggles offered him enabled him to think faster, to process things faster. "


**Balancing Out Monochromatism**

Matt saw in a monochrome palette of amber, and he didn't mind. After all, this restricted vision blessed him with simplicity. Amber condensed color and simplified distractors into varying shades of light and dark. Sometimes, he thought that the simplicity his goggles offered him enabled him to think faster, to process things faster. Other times, he saw the goggles for what they were - convenient. They painted his world a comfortable shade, and nothing more.

From his vision, amber became a unifying bridge between the digitalized world of his video game and reality; the two were linked in color. He did not even need to blink when he shifted his focus from the game to his apartment's intruder, a man once familiar made a stranger.

Mello.

Silence had marched like a tyrant between them for four years, and now _he_ had returned with more silence filling his lungs and the residue of smoke clinging to burnt skin. When he spoke, he was clipped and calculated. Reason avoided his tone; it always sounded as though he were dancing on the edge of some precipice when he spoke - And something about the inflection of his voice always made his audience feel like he was standing on edge of their doom, and that he could not fall. His appearance spoke of damnation, but his aspirations spoke of a twisted heaven.

Mello told him the bare bones of the case, and he didn't ask for anything more. The case didn't involve him, didn't warrant his interest - Why should it? And Mello . . . Four years wasn't long, but it was long enough for time to carve someone new out of what was. After all, time had done the same to him. In all technicality, they should be strangers.

But they weren't. These past months that they had served together in quiet company spoke testimony to this truth. After all, the silence between them, interrupted only by the blaring electronic music of his video game, was familiar; Mello's work ethic, which verged on manic, was familiar.

He watched Mello divide his attention between an aged laptop, a pile of newspapers, and some case notes. He watched Mello's jaw clench with concentration as he circled a few keywords of an article in black pen. He watched the way that Mello took up as much space as possible in how he sat and organized his papers.

Matt wondered why it felt familiar.

Mello turned in his chair to face him with an arched brow. The ballpoint pen was still balanced between his fingers, and Matt watched absently as Mello rolled the pen back and forth between his index and third finger; for a moment, Matt wasted time musing whether Mello knew he was doing it.

"What?" Mello's curt voice cut over the electronic music; his gaze settled upon him, searching him for the reason of his incessant staring.

A half-smile, sardonic but passive, sketched itself onto Matt's lips. Search though Mello might, Matt knew his goggles' lenses would only answer with a reflection of light, of shadows, of an image Mello himself.

He continued to watch, unperturbed, and made note of the fluidity of Mello's motion and the cascade of light hair over light skin and the painted texture of the burn that marred him. All of this . . . in amber. Matt's smile became tight with the sudden, disconnected thought that Mello was not something that could be simplified into light and dark and shades in the middle. He did not fit in a monochrome palette of amber.

Matt found himself pushing his goggles down, letting them hang loosely around his neck. He blinked at the sudden brightness.

Mello, though garbed almost entirely in black, was color.

Again, he wondered why it all felt so familiar.

"Creep," Mello offered good-naturedly when he received no answer and turned once more to his work.

Matt snorted, finally breaking his own silence. "I was just trying to place when and why I let a wanker like you into my apartment."

"Watch it, asshole."  
The half-smile had sketched itself full and, in the process, had lost the darkening sardonic touch.

Matt grinned and stood. Without thinking, his fingers came up to play at the cord of his goggles. A few steps brought him to perch on the edge of Mello's desk, looking down both upon him and the laptop screen with idle interest. "It would run faster if you bothered to let me update it."  
"You ask for time that I don't have, Matt."

He gave no outright sign of dissent. Still, he did tilt his head just _so,_ and he did quirk his lips just so. It was an open-ended statement that, "It depends which way you look at it."

Mello's eyes narrowed, and he again paused in his work. This time, he set the black ballpoint down upon the desk. Before he could speak, however, Matt cut in. "With a slower system, you're wasting time you don't have."

"Fuck off."

Matt was still grinning. He was still seeing in color, and now he saw gold cascading like framework around Mello's face. He saw glacier blue irises and the gleam of silver adornments accenting black attire and the natural residue of pink at Mello's lips. He saw angry red that only further enhanced the gold of his skin and hair. Looking at Mello, he thought, was like looking at art. Of course, he didn't particularly care to look at art - But that wasn't quite the point. The point was… He wasn't immune to art. Why did it all feel so familiar?

"You know I'm right."  
"I know you're an asshole."

"You know how to make a guy feel good about himself, don't you?" Matt spoke, crossing his arms in exaggerated triumph. Without thought, his fingers rose to tap a delicate dance upon his own cheek, following the lines imprinted by goggles around his eye socket.

A roll of blue eyes spoke of half-hearted irritation, and Mello moved to pick up the black inked pen - a clear gesture of dismissal. Matt ignored it and remained seated at the end of the desk.

The colorful contrast of Mello's appearance, he thought with thin indifference, only acted as a medium for what was undeniably an even more vivid personality.

"You're dynamic." Thus he spoke, blandly and bluntly and without purpose. Mello hummed an uncommitted response; his gaze flickered towards Matt and away again within a fraction of a second. It was an obvious statement, and Mello was waiting for something more that might provide a frame of context. When minutes passed and nothing further came, Mello jabbed his pen indelicately into the other's hip.

Matt ignored the demand, though he did elaborate to himself, "You're dynamic, and you make familiar colors I wouldn't otherwise pay mind to."

There was another jab to his hip. This one was sharper than the last.

"What?" Matt relented, voice accusatory. He rubbed his hip reproachfully.

"Stop loitering," Mello's voice was sullen. He uncapped the pen and circled another word. Cocking his head and squinting, Matt recognized the word to be the name,"Kimura," which coincidentally meant nothing to him.

"I will remind you again that this is my apartment." Accusation had vanished from Matt's demeanor, replaced with amusement which manifested itself in a jaunty quirk of the lips.

Mello frowned. "So I need to be more gracious about it, then? Forgive me - Kindly stop hovering over me like a vulture and allow me to do my work before I ignore common courtesies and deny you the right to sit your ass down on your own furniture." He paused and jabbed at Matt again. His target, however, was unconcerned.

"Nah," was the careless response. "I just wanted to ask why you thought that I would help you on this case." Matt watched the sudden tension of Mello's jaw and watched how he straightened in his seat. It was unexpected, he knew. Intrusive questions seldom fell from his lips. This one only escaped because he did not care for the answer. The question was inflected in such a way that it seemed light, insubstantial. Regardless, Mello seemed to see it in iron.

"Bullshit. I never asked you to help." Arms crossed over his chest, and Mello met his gaze with careful defiance. It was true; Mello had never asked for his help. Regardless, somewhere along the way, Matt had somehow found himself falling in step with the other. This they both knew.

And so Matt hadn't needed to ask. The question itself only existed as a vocalized link within his own train of thought. Mello was familiar to Matt. His habits were familiar to Matt. That Mello had revealed himself after four years' absence surely indicated that he, too, found Matt familiar. Of course, one could argue that Mello had been ripped to shreds, that he had no choice. Matt was inclined to think otherwise; in his opinion, the prideful could always find another way, and Mello was perpetually drenched in pride.

Why was it all so familiar?

It wasn't a difficult question. Bias just bent the answer in such a way that it required a moment's consideration. Though four years had warped the linear reality of their relationship, it did not blotch the truth of trust.

When Mello had left and when Mello had reappeared, older and scarred, Matt had not been surprised. When Matt learned the bulleted truths of the Kira case with considerable indifference, Mello had not been surprised. They existed on the edge of an unbroken borderline trust of being. Matt trusted Mello to act as a flame exposed to the wind, and he assumed Mello trusted him to be as steady as the earth's slow-moving plates.

Matt resituated the goggles over his eyes and moved to return to his game. Mello was in amber once more. Even so, it balanced out perfectly.


End file.
